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People infected with a deadly, virtually untreatable new form of tuberculosis should be isolated and confined -- against their will, if necessary -- to prevent a "potentially explosive international health crisis," according to a group of Canadian and African scientists.

These harsh measures are justified given the "extreme risk" posed by an ongoing outbreak of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) in South Africa, they argue in today's edition of the medical journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

Africa? How about it coming up from Mexico? It's already been brought here. There was a woman from Mexico that came to Albuquerque, NM with it because she was going to die if she wasn't treated in the US. Our doctors at the University of New Mexico Hospital treated her and after one year, she was doing OK, but her treatment has to continue. The problem is that treatment for one woman with that TB cost the taxpayers of NM $250,000.00. That's a quarter of a million dollars for one person. It's a fact too. I can get the newspaper article to verify it if anyone wants to see it. It's on line. I checked it out a year or two ago when I read it in my local paper. Can you imagine if every state had 2 or 3 a year? Or perhaps an epidemic. It would bankrupt our health care system!!